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Notes -
It requires assessing something. It's up to you whether or not you support people you find worthy or not, but to empathize there has to be something there to empathize with, otherwise you are just creating something fictional.
Saving the neighbor is traditional altruism. You know them you've interacted with them so you can empathize with them.
Saving x from y shouldn't be altruism, you don't know anything about them, you can't empathize with them without projecting, and not just some minimally necessary projection, you're basically inventing them whole cloth.
As to whether it's more or less altruistic, it seems it would be more altruistic to save the neighbor who shared none of your values than it would be to save a neighbor that shared your values and therefore helped to further you / your groups interests. This seems nonsensical to me though and basically just pointless virtue signalling.
edit: Another poster argued basically exactly this that the definition i'm using reduces to virtue maximizing and that actual EA would donate to people that shared their cause (the neighbor they liked) because they are about maximizing positive outcomes. I do feel like it stretches the definition of altruism though. Say some extreme narcissist that took an iq test as a kid and got into mensa or something felt that they were likely to be more capable than anyone else and therefore had the potential to benefit the world more than anyone else. Would they create an organization that aimed to funnel all resources to themselves and call it effective altruism? Maybe EA people believe this? Seems like the economy and wealth agrees with this. Are there EA groups funneling all their resources into ai to create god? Idk, maybe!
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